Syringe storage and disposal container

Claim 1

A syringe container for syringes each having a body including a radially outwardly projecting flange, comprising: openable shell housing having walls and having an access opening and being adapted for storing sterile syringes in a freely removable manner or soiled syringes in a captured manner to help prevent unwanted accidental needle punctures as well as reuse of the soiled syringes; closure means for being disposed over said opening to retain the sterile syringes within said housing and for being removed from the opening to permit access to the interior of the housing; a pair of resiliently deformable lugs each having a top surface for engaging the flange, said lugs being spaced by a distance sufficiently large to receive freely the syringe body and sufficiently small to be smaller than the width of the flange, said lugs depending angularly downwardly in a spaced apart manner for permitting a syringe body to be inserted freely between said lugs until the syringe flange engages the top surfaces of said lugs to force them away from one another to permit the full insertion of the syringe and thereafter capturing it in place by the lugs snapping back to their unstressed positions; common interior wall means extending axially within said shell housing for defining with the housing walls a soiled syringe receiving pocket means to receive and store a soiled syringe, and a sterile syringe receiving pocket means to receive and store a sterile syringe, to enable both a soiled syringe and a sterile syringe to be stored side by side within said housing without causing the sterile syringe from becoming contaminated by the soiled syringe.